A QUIET CHRISTMAS

Ann and I can’t be the only ones who celebrate a very quiet Christmas. We’ll go to church in the morning – no Christmas Eve services for us – too noisy. My daughter and her boyfriend will be over for dinner. We have a small tree. We don’t exchange gifts. We give each other gifts throughout the year instead. It will be a quiet day. Might not even turn on the TV.

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Currently reading: Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen 📚. Just started. I pick up a book of his about every 6 months or so. Random note: this one has typewriters.

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I should get rid of duplicate apps. Too many do almost the same thing.

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Starting to learn Dutch again. I want to be able to understand the relatives when Ann and I visit. Hopefully I can keep it up for a year and a bit.

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Taken about a month ago just northeast of Grand Marais MN.

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Nearly ready to put the old place up for sale. It’s been a long road.

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Time to broaden my point of view. Following a bunch more folks at random on micro.blog.

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The Crazy Days are coming to an end. Our move out of our old place has taken months with Ann pretty much out of commission with her nerve pain and me working. Lots of clean up and repair.

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NEW TVS ARE TOO DAMN "SMART"

Problem: Our new LG G3 TV was turning off after 15 minutes when the HDMI switch is set to the Spectrum DVR. It worked fine when the HDMI switch is set to the Apple TV 4K. It seemed to be some sort of interaction between the TV and the DVR. Configuration: HDMI 4-port switch box LG G3 TV (HDMI port 4 to switch box output) Spectrum DVR (Magnavox) (input port 2 on switch box) Apple TV 4K (input port 3 on switch box) All cabling is Ultimate HDMI, suitable for 8K, in wall rated.

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This upcoming week is move week. Ann and I move from our wooded 2-acre lot back into town. Downsizing from 2300 to 1600 sq ft, and from 4 levels to 1 level (no stairs!). Hoping to massively simplify.

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WHERE HAVE I BEEN

Following after @manton, @maique, and others. Reminds me a bit of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFRpa81MUAY. Countries Lived United States Countries Visited (in order) Canada Cayman Islands Jamaica Sweden Switzerland Netherlands Belgium Mexico Germany Czech Republic Portugal UK (Scotland, Northern Ireland) Ireland Next Countries (sort of in order) Italy Hungary Austria Poland Spain Morocco Greece Norway Finland Iceland Denmark UK (England) France Fiji New Zealand Australia Argentina Chile States Lived (3) Michigan - 12 years Wisconsin - 11 years Minnesota - 46 years States Visited (40) Several weeks (8) Arizona California Colorado Florida New Hampshire New York North Carolina Washington A few days (25) Alabama Alaska Arkansas Connecticut Georgia Illinois Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Mississippi Missouri Nebraska New Jersey New Mexico Oklahoma Pennsylvania South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Virginia Washington DC (not a state) Wyoming Overnight (4) Indiana Maine Ohio West Virginia Transited by train (3) Idaho Montana North Dakota States missed (8) Delaware Hawaii Maryland Nevada Oregon Rhode Island Utah Vermont Canadian provinces Quebec New Brunswick Prince Edward Island Ontario Manitoba Saskatchewan Alberta British Columbia

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I’m finding that I’m using the BBEdit scratchpad and Tot for almost all my #plaintext composition. BBEdit is the second program I install after 1Password on a new Mac.

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New tries in the past 24 hours: Ivory for macOS (good so far), Kagi search trial (not sure yet, seems good), latest Quicken for Windows on my dad’s laptop (a vast improvement over Quicken 2015 that my dad was using), back to TunnelBear from ClearVPN, and there are probably more I don’t remember.

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What goes? A lot of books donated to our public library. Extra furniture. All the CDs donated as well. Maple and walnut boards I’ve been saving. Woodworking tools. Snowblowers. Lawnmowers. Bicycles. The list is huge. Some sold mostly given away.

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Moving soon. Downsizing from 2300 to 1600 sq ft. Good thing I never bought that 3D printer.

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Grandiflora trillium

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Finally getting around to getting and setting up Yubikeys. Fun times!

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Ann and I saw Hamlet at the Guthrie Theater yesterday. Excellent!

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This week I’m playing with the Zola static site generator. Maybe a new toy will get me blogging more often? That’s probably wishful thinking, but even if it doesn’t I’ll be brushing up on rudimentary CSS.

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The creators of Smalltalk: Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, Adele Goldberg, et. al. have my admiration. Simple, elegant, and useful in its time. I go to the Squeak implementation every so often and sigh.

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I’ve never played a Mario game in my life but somehow this just seems right. It’s-a-me, Mario’s shoe: Red Wing makes boots inspired by video game character Mario - MPR News

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How did I not find out about Standard ebooks until a week ago? I’ll be reading forever.

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Why is it that the days you feel too tired to journal are the days when everything happens?

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THERE IS NO ONE TRUE APP FOR HANDLING NOTES

I’m trying to limit the number of apps I have bits and pieces of knowledge stored in, but there is no one true app. Some notes require diagrams, some require tables, some require databases that can be analyzed for patterns. Well-organized folders and tags help with the multiplicity of formats. I’m moving to plain text when its the right medium, but sometimes it is not. For example, I had a scheme for moving all of my OmniFocus items that were not immediate to TaskPaper format and managing that separately, but found as I started moving stuff that I really like having all the project tasks in one spot.

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At DeBine brewery in Palm Harbor next to the Pinellas Trail. Informal survey seems to be Half e-bike to regular bike. E-bikes have exploded in popularity over the past two years.

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